4G mobile network technology is in its final stages of research and development; the company hopes the roll-out will occur later this year. The data rate should be between 100 megabits and one gigabit per second. (A typical DSL landline in the U.S. has a data rate of one to three megabits per second.) Such speeds would allow high-quality downloads of full-length movies in minutes.

Aiming to improve video quality on everything from smart phones to giant televisions, the group is evaluating new coding and compression techniques. Previous technologies developed by the group now underlie most digital multimedia formats.